E-Club ProThe Comedy Zone
The Lower Smallville Annual Dinner And Fiasco
On Saturday 15th December the Lower Smallville Magic Club celebrated it's 350th year of existence and so the committee decided to really push the boat out for their annual dinner by hiring the skittle alley at the back of the Pig and Whistle.
Guests were greeted on arrival by Jolly the Clown, who kept all those arriving thoroughly entertained with his squirting bowtie and flashing pink wig. The seating arrangements consisted of one very long thin table which uniquely was only able to seat people down one side, which I suppose is the advantage of hiring a skittle alley. I just pitied the person who would have to sit at the far end as he was likely to be a touch squashed next to the smelly brown impact sacks and the collection of wooden skittles and balls.
After a quick one and a half hours of mixing and mingling while waiting to extract a pint of nicely warmed beer from the pierced youth who happened to be standing behind the bar (I do hope his streaming cold is better now), everyone was startled back to reality by a huge blast on a foghorn which heralded the arrival of the main dignitaries and guests.
First in, as always, was our President, Sidney Posh and his charming wife Gladys. They were accompanied by our principal after dinner speaker, Sir Rodney Trout and his stunningly lovely wife Beryl. Sir Rodney had made his millions selling time share apartments in Iraq, so I was particularly looking forward to his monologue after the food. Next in line was our ever popular secretary Denis Dribbling and his unbelievably ravishing wife Gertrude, and they were followed in close attendance by our trusted club treasurer George Shylock and his unquestionably fantastic looking wife Tracey. Bringing up the rear was the organiser of this stunning evening, Bert Trenchcoat and his indisputably, incontrovertibly brilliant looking wife Sandra.
As the smattering of half hearted applause faded away and the posh lot sat down, the rest of us hurtled in an undignified race to grab the few remaining decent seats, everyone determined not to be the one sitting near the sacks.
The table decorations had been made by Gloria Splat who clearly had more time on her hands than was good for her because each person on sitting down was confronted by a huge replica of the Titanic made entirely from cotton wool buddies. I just wish that Gloria had thought to use new ones when making mine.
The menus had been lovingly printed on bible paper by the club dealer John Shady in his immediately recognisable light brown ink and as I squinted at the wobbly type which was almost visible on the virtually see through paper I managed to make out that we appeared to be having Porn Cocktail, Rust Chicken, Sorry Trifle and Cheese and Buckets with Corfu. I decided that either John needed to consider getting a spell checker for his computer or he should drink less.
I had the good fortune to be sitting next to Jimmy 'the-man-with-a-thousand-tales' Dangler so I knew that I wouldn't have to actually make any conversation for the evening as he was more than capable of making it entirely on his own as he exhaustively recalled every single person and event during the Lower Smallville Magic Club's 350 year history. If I hadn't made a good impromptu alternative use of my Titanic funnel I might have been able to hear him.
After two hours of chewing relentlessly through the Pig and Whistle's best attempt at Rust Chicken and Sorry Trifle, the evening dragged to its highlight, the speech by Sir Rodney Trout. Because of the seating arrangements nobody could actually see Sir Rodney, perched as he was towards one end of the table on a three legged bar stool, and because there was no microphone, nobody could really hear him, at least they certainly couldn't above the general hubbub of conversation that appeared to be going on at the same time. In fact it was only after 45 minutes that most of us were alerted to the fact that he must have finished when we heard one person clapping. Mind you, his wife Beryl can certainly make a din with those hands.
With the food over and the warm beer having run out (as had the pierced youth, presumably to fetch more paper tissues for his nose), our President Sidney announced that due to unforeseen circumstances the disco had not turned up. However, the good news was that member Algernon Redneck had agreed to delight everybody with his rendition of 40 World War 2 favourites played on the comb and paper with accompaniment from Bertie Slack on the spoons. This certainly would bring the evening to a close.
And so it was that at 1.30am everyone said their 'goodbyes', or in many cases 'hellos' since the seating arrangements had meant that most people had no idea who else had been there, and we all drifted away into the cold night air already looking forward to doing it all again next year. Personally I'm moving to Scotland.
